Referring to MEF55 document the Interlude reference point is used by Service Orchestration Functionality to request initiation of technical operations or dynamic control behavior associated with a Service with a partner network domain. The dynamic control (Service Control Orchestration) behavior is elaborated in section 8.2.3 of MEF55 as - Scheduling, assigning and coordinating service control related activities;
- Undertaking necessary tracking of the execution process of service control requests;
- Adding additional information to an existing service control request under execution;
- Modifying information in an existing service control request under execution;
- Modifying the service control request status, and indicating completion of a service control request;
- Canceling a service control request; - Monitoring the jeopardy status of service control requests, and escalating service control requests as necessary;
- Instantiating, when appropriate, an event for the billing system to capture the policy-constrained change.
MEF55 also differentiates Order Fulfillment Orchestration, Service Configuration and Activation, Service Control Orchestration. While Order Fulfillment Orchestration deals with establishing or modifying a service through the ordering process, Service Control permits the service to be dynamically changed within specific bounds described in policies that are established at the time of ordering. After a service is provisioned and established, LSO may enable Service Control to Customers/parties, such as the ability to modify attributes subject to schedule policies and service constraint policies with for example specified ranges of valid values. Service Control relates to capabilities such as turning on or off connections, throttling bandwidth or other QoS characteristics, etc. So considering the scope in MEF55, Interlude reference point is primarily used for Service Control Orchestration. The interactions factored in the MEF Interlude Reference point are as follows - Service Provider controls aspects of the Service within the Partner domain (on behalf of the Customer) by requesting changes to dynamic parameters as permitted by service policies.
- Service Provider queries the operational state of the Service.
- Service Provider requests change to the administrative state of a service or service component (e.g. Service Interface)
- Service Provider requests update to defaulted service parameters which are allowed to be customized (policy-controlled)
- Service Provider requests the creation of connectivity between two Service Interfaces as permitted by established business arrangement.
- Service Provider provider queries the Partner's Service Inventory for services provided by the Partner to the Service Provider.
- Service Provider receives Service specific event notifications from the Partner.
- Service Provider receives Service specific performance information from the Partner.
- Service Provider requests test initiation and receive test results from the Partner.
The green one'sare interactions currently supported in External API as part of the CCVPN use case. In addition to the above listed capabilities (in green) already supported by Ext-API , there are two other capabilities -Service Provider Queries the Service Catalogue for the offered Services by Partner [via Ext-API Service Catalogue API, Not an expected Interlude capability]
-Service Provider places Service Order for a Service offered by Partner[Not specifically Interlude Capability as per MEF Interlude]
-Service Provider queries operational state of the Service. [via Ext-API Service Inventory API]
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